[Tex/LaTex] How to not use the full fist name in IEEE spconf paper (abbreviated first name with bibtex)

bibtexcitingieee-styleieeeconf

I'm trying to put the first name of the authors in the references, abbreviated. For example John Smith should become J. Smith. I was able to produce the problem even from official MLSP conference template. Here is the minimal example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{mlspconf}

\title{How abbriviated first name appear in the references}
\name{John Doe} 

\begin{document}

\maketitle
\begin{abstract}
    The problem is apearing of full first name in the references
\end{abstract}
\begin{keywords}
    test first name
\end{keywords}


\section{Introduction}


This is a test \cite{Schr}. 

\bibliographystyle{IEEEbib}
\bibliography{refs}

\end{document}

and here is the .bib tex:

@article{Schr,
    author = {Smith, John and Doe, George},
    title = {Test name abbriviations},
    journal = {Commun. ACM},
    issue_date = {May 2018},
    volume = {65},
    number = {4},
    month = apr,
    year = {2018},
    issn = {0002-1834},
    pages = {60--69},
    numpages = {11},
    publisher = {ACM},
    address = {New York, NY, USA},
}

NOTE1: I'm using bibtex and just in case, the IEEEbib.bst and mlspconf.sty are available at here

Best Answer

Thanks for providing a link to the bst file. I suggest you proceed as follows.

  • Make a copy of the file IEEEbib.bst and call the copy, say IEEEbib-abbrev.bst. (Don't edit an original file directly.)

  • Open the file IEEEbib-abbrev.bst in a text editor. (The editor you use for your tex files will do fine.)

  • In the file IEEEbib-abbrev.bst, locate the function format.names and, in this function, the line

        { s nameptr "{ff~}{vv~}{ll}{, jj}" format.name$ 't :=

    Change {ff~} to {f. }.

  • Next, locate the function format.crossref.editor and, in this function, the line

        { editor #2 "{ff }{vv }{ll}{ jj}" format.name$ "others" =

    Change {ff } to {f. }.

    In case you haven't already guessed what's going on: ff is short for "full first name", and f. is short for "first name abbreviated to first initial, followed by a dot (period, full stop)".

  • Save the file IEEEbib-abbrev.bst, either in the directory where the main tex file is located or in a directory that's searched by BibTeX. If you choose the latter option, be sure to update the filename database of your TeX distribution suitably.

  • In your main tex file, change the instruction 

    \bibliographystyle{IEEEbib}

    to

    \bibliographystyle{IEEEbib-abbrev}

    and perform a complete recompile cycle -- LaTeX, BibTeX, and LaTeX twice more -- to fully propagate all changes.

Happy BibTeXing!

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